Category Archives: Family

First Thing

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 18, 2026-

I was glad to be invited to a Baha’i Feast this evening. I didn’t attend because my kids took Yunhee’s Mom out to dinner and found themselves waiting in line for an hour.

Hana and I held down the fort at home. We just looked at a big plush toy with valentine heart eyes and felt its softness. I told her about the need to sometimes be patient and how so many things that her soul wants will take time to happen.

She will understand this and much else, in less time than we might imagine. She sees things that adults can’t and seems comforted by them. She also knows, on a very basic level, that her safety and well-being are the most important things to us.

So, if I am asked to be somewhere and my grandchild needs me, I will take a rain check on the invitation.

Passages

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual

January 17, 2026-

Hana will never know seven of her great grandparents. Five of them, including my Dad and Penny’s parents, passed some time ago. My Mom has been gone for 1 1/2 years. Yunhee’s maternal grandfather bid farewell this evening.

I recall stories about my own maternal grandfather. He was, by all accounts, a hard- working man, who warned anyone who would listen about the rise of Fascism. That was in the Boston of the late 1920s and early ‘30s.

My maternal grandmother was a bright light of my early years. She would walk down the hill to visit, when we lived less than a mile away. After we moved to our own house, she would take the bus to our corner and walk down Adams Avenue. Either way, she was a reliable presence, until she became ill and passed on, in 1960.

My paternal grandparents were also endearing people. Grampy underwent an experimental heart bypass, in 1955 and didn’t make it through. Nana was more of an enduring presence, living to see and enjoy 49 grandchildren, then 10 great grands. she, too, would take the bus from her neighbourhood in nearby Lynn and one of us would pick her up at Saugus Center.

Hana will know them, and her grandmother, Penny, through stories and pictures. It will be a while, hopefully, before she encounters death as a part of life. Her maternal grandparents and I will keep ourselves active and healthy, and hopefully the impermanence of life will come to be understood in a positive context. I will teach her about spiritual energy, when she is old enough to understand such matters.

In the meantime, I will just be backing her up with prayers, and by holding her close, in a reassuring manner.

Evened Out

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Family, Personal Values, Social, Striving, Technical stuff

January 16, 2026-

We had a long conversation, my granddaughter and I- I talked and she cooed and babbled. Our eyes were locked on each other, except when she gazed up at the trees outside. The wind was causing the leaves and branches to move. So I told her about wind and what it does.

She then was “treated by her maternal grandmother to a fifty-minute loop of someone singing a tune, whose signature line was “Welcome to the kitchen”. The singer was a woman, so I know it was not by Labrinth.

The time will come when Hana will revel in watching and listening to the same thing over and over, but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there.

The connectivity matter is starting to even out- on my end at least. I have added passwords to a few more sites and let correspondents know to touch base with me using the new e-mail address.

This process will take a few more days. I have asked Word Press‘s parent company to help, so maybe by Monday or Tuesday things will start getting back to normal.

Loop de Loop

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, distraction issues, Family, impediments, Personal Values, service, Social, Striving, Technical stuff

January 15, 2026-

I spent most of today going around and around with the AI of G-Mail and Word Press. This site’s schtick was: “We need you to provide proof of original site purchase, before restoring your account. To do that, though, you have to change your password, which of course you can’t do on the phone app.”

G-mail is not a whole lot different. So, here I am writing my blog on the phone and cannot share on Facebook, because that requires entering my Word Press password.

I am able to pull my friends, family and Substack subscriptions onto my new G-mail address, so there’s that. Eventually, the address with the lost password will fade into irrelevance.

Around the house, though, I pulled a mess of weeds out of the backyard and got a few smiles from Hana, when she awoke and mine was the first face she saw. She is taking in more of the first floor and looking outside the window more.

Limbo

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Personal Values, Social

January 14,2026-

This post, and probably the next few, will be brief. I can only post from my phone for the time being, due to an issue between my laptop and wordpress.com. The site will not recognize any password I enter, even if it initially says the password is okay. Also, this blogsite cannot be accessed on the computer. I am instead directed to two or three AI-generated free sites.

As for the family, we are all doing well. Hana is keeping us all busy, even just being a mellow little girl. I am re-learning skills I had back in the day, along with all the new infant care gadgets that are quite helpful. The basics of holding baby close and supporting head and back, are still first and foremost.

Sanctuary

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 13, 2026- Granddaughter had a tough day today. Our little Capricorn had to take not one, but two, trips in the car, so being in the car seat-one of her least favourite activities-was just part of the agenda. The other stuff was more of a personal nature-the normal ups and downs of being a newborn. This house, though, is her sanctuary-and Grandfather’s arms are a bower. None of us here will let anything wreck her day, and if she has, as her father occasionally had, a tough time, I will set anything else aside and just hold and rock her.

When Hana is upset, and I have her with me, she will look me in the eye while crying, almost as if hoping to see and feel being understood. That, she is, and the group of us will figure out what is bothering her, either from her physical cues or by noting anything that has happened, during feeding or elimination, that might be causing her distress.

Every human being deserves sanctuary. The sanctuary for the innocent is protection from harm. The sanctuary for the criminal is due process. In 2016, Donald Trump asked one fair question: “Where was the sanctuary for Kate Steinle?” She was the young lady who was killed by a violent man who was in the United States illegally. Kate Steinle was in a place for people on holiday. She, and everyone else there, deserved a safe environment.

The same is true for every other person who has been killed or assaulted by someone filled with rage. They deserved a safe place. Think about that, before commenting on whether anyone going about their business deserved death or injury, for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Fire Blankets and Urban Walking

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 12, 2026- My order of three fire suppression blankets came today. These blankets offer considerable protection in the event of a house fire, so we have one on each floor and a third in the laundry room, next to the garage. They are easier to use than a fire extinguisher, though hopefully we won’t need to use them at all.

I spent a good part of this afternoon in the nearby city of McKinney, which is our county seat, and the location of a KIA dealership. I first caught a Lyft to downtown, not being sure just how far it was, or how difficult it might be to get there from the dealer. Finding the main bookstore closed, I walked around the interesting downtown, and settled in at Collective Coffee, which reminds me, favourably, of Prescott’s Wild Iris or Century Lounge. I can see myself frequenting Collective, when in McKinney on one errand or another.

After indulging in a latte and slice of coffee cake, I checked the distance back to the dealership. It was 1.5 miles, mostly along a pleasant residential street, so I made the walk. The houses are largely of Victorian vintage, many with turrets. There are a few businesses in midtown, but the mini-malls wait until closer to U.S. 75. I am accustomed to navigating walking paths near major thoroughfares, though, and this area has crosswalks that allow for safe passage over highway approaches, just shy of the actual on-ramps. I was back at the dealership in less than a half-hour.

The service department caught up with a few recalls and gave me a schedule for maintenance. It’s good to be at a KIA dealer, after four years of winging it.

Back home, all were glad to see me. Hana relaxed her head on my shoulder and let out a big sigh, as I helped her into sleep mode tonight. Grandpa will not let her down.

Wondering about Clouds

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Posted by on in Assistance, children, collaborating, Community, Family, Hiking and Nature, impediments, Inspiration, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual

January 9, 2026- In my early evening time with Hana, she was gazing up at the clouds and the tree in our front yard. The big upper windows allow plenty of room for a child to look up and out, especially when wrapped in the safety of loving arms. I told her about how clouds give trees life-giving water, just like we are feeding her life-giving milk. She continued to look at the scene outside. Her pre-lingual brain is, no doubt, saving images, with repeat observation and hearing similar words with regard to what she sees.

I wonder, too, about clouds, though of a different kind. The mental clouds we use to “shield” ourselves from the reality of things outside or even from our own shadow selves-misgivings, shrill self-condemnation, lack of impulse control, can be useful in the sense of giving time to process those negative elements and let them flow out. Held on too tightly, they can be energy-sapping and unnecessarily limiting.

That is the wisdom of nature: Clouds come, drop their load of rain or snow, and move along-so long as we,in our rush to make a profit or craving to hold onto ideas that have lost their efficacy, do not continue with policies and behaviours that interrupt the water cycle. Nature ebbs and flows well enough on its own. We have the choice of learning to flow with it, as many ancient cultures did, or of acting in arrogance and trying to supersede the natural rhythm.

Drawn to the Light

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Posted by on in children, collaborating, Family, impediments, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 8, 2026- Hana and I had an hour of just the two of us, this evening. The rest of the family went to an Asian market, so grandmother could select foods with which to properly make some Korean dishes, which she’s wanted to fix since coming here.

Our darling girl took in her surroundings, as she does most of the time that she’s awake and not feeding. She watched me carefully, as I told her about the world being a largely beautiful place and that there will be many good things in her life, as well as challenging things. I told her that I would be there for her for as long as I am intended. After watching me for several minutes, she began to focus on the light in the next room. Perhaps her departed grandmother made her presence known, or maybe it was just the light to which her eyes were drawn.

It is well that we are more drawn to light than darkness. The latter is something that is best faced and illuminated. While it can be fascinating, darkness is the dearth of light. Those things that are constructive and regenerative are what most merit our attention. As my granddaughter, with no understanding of language, as yet, develops her ways of communicating, eventually including language skills, I sense that her orientation will be towards proactivity and clarity. She already knows that while sometimes crying and fussing are necessary to get her needs met, there are also plenty of times when we attend to her calmer body language.

May she always turn to the light.

Thumb Rockets

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Posted by on in children, Community, Family, Inspiration, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving

January 7, 2026- “Let me show you a trick that your granddaughter will think is the stupidest thing she ever saw”, the new friend from McKinney said over lunch at a local deli. He proceeded to have me wrap a piece of paper around my thumb, and twist it to make a little “hat” for the thumb. He’s right; I think Hana would roll her eyes at that part, when she is about eight or nine. He then had me make an OK sign with my other thumb and forefinger, put it around my wrapped thumb and pull the thumb out of the paper, but in such a way that it made the paper go up and out- a thumb rocket.

D is an interesting man who has not had an easy life. That puts him in good company with a number of people I’ve known over the years. The difference is, he’s made mostly good choices, from the time he was a child. Growing up in the north of this Metroplex, when it was a long ways from being a Metroplex, he’s seen it all happen. Still, as I watched, the farmer in him caught a small rat by the tail and disposed if it in a way that a man who has plowed through hard knocks for eight decades would do without batting an eyelash. (No, that was NOT in the deli).

Time with a good ole boy is spent in a way similar to how time is spent with a First Nations person, a nomad of the Negev, or a campesino anywhere in the Southwest or Mexico. The watch stays hidden, because schedules don’t matter. D told stories of his childhood and his large family. A lot of his experiences mirror those of my male elders. Farm life is a great connector. After the nearly ninety-minute lunch, I drove around the area a bit, to ponder all that I had heard.

I will see D., and other local Baha’is, on a regular basis, so perhaps I will earn other “tricks” that will make my granddaughter alternately giggle and groan.